


Icarus

by Webtrinsic



Series: The Fantastic Four's MCU Origin, with lots of Johnny whump (S.1) [6]
Category: Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four (2015), Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Fantastic Four (Movies 2005-2007), Fantastic Four (Movies), Fantastic Four (Ultimateverse)
Genre: And yes I shamelessly used this series to write her in, Everett Ross is a good guy, F/M, I love the Griever, Learning to Fly, Making Friends, Phoenix symbolism, Protective Ben Grimm, Protective Everett Ross, Protective Reed Richards, Protective Susan Storm, Protective Team, Self-Discovery, Song references, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25718419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: The Human Torch learns he can fly and Doctor Doom makes a deal with the end of all things.
Relationships: Ben Grimm & Reed Richards & Johnny Storm & Susan Storm, Everett Ross & Johnny Storm, Everett Ross & Shuri, Reed Richards/Susan Storm (Fantastic Four)
Series: The Fantastic Four's MCU Origin, with lots of Johnny whump (S.1) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665754
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> the only thing that frustrates me about this fic is that it seemed really long when I was writing it but it's I think shorter than the other ones in this series, also heheh this one gives clues as if to what will come next because the next installment is basically the showdown and then the last after that is filler and a potential build up to a sequel series

He knew how the saying went, for every step forward you take two steps back, and in his case Johnny felt the more appropriate metaphor in his situation was for his first step forward, his two steps back had sent him down a flight of stairs, or quite possibly an escalator. Suspending him in a rapid free fall of feelings that were new to even him.

He’d been under the belief he’d been at his lowest when they’d packed up his family the night of the explosion and he’d run off to fight. To bleed and swear in agony. He’d run off in the hopes of making the pain filling his chest physical.

He could deal with physical pain easily. 

Johnny had wanted to hurt then, but nothing more than that. He hadn’t begged for death or even entertained the thought. Suicide had never crossed his mind in the past and he didn’t understand why the thought, although not impending, sat itself in the back of his mind.

A spectator finally making themself known with an unhelpful shout ever so often, trying to shift the game in their favor by supporting the opposing team. 

His pull towards the helipad made a lot more sense now. For a while it’d quieted, his heart-to-hearts with his family scaring the intrusive thoughts away. The reveal of his earned anxiety tampered out by their words, only to revitalize the minute he found himself back alone with his thoughts.

Sunrise was just around the corner as he sat there, legs dangling over the edge. His body begging to drip down off the rounded surface and into the never ending blur of active life below. A testing feeling wriggled throughout his gut, his powers always did seem to make him feel lighter than air even when his emotions held him down like lead. Although like his old science teacher had said, "Lead may be heavy, but it also took very little heat for it to melt and wither away."

Maybe that’s what he needed to do, let his feelings melt and wither away, let _himself_ melt and wither away. As his body fell from the helipad, the altitude shifted around the teen, forcing the epiphany to expel him back up into the air, body flaming and floating, _flying._

His jump had not been a suicide, rather a self-inflicted murder of a fearful teen with little control over his emotions and their affect on his powers. That Johnny was gone, the reborn human torch was here now, flying and rising with the sun itself over New York with seemingly limitless power.

When the sun hit its peak Johnny landed, the flames falling away and a bright smile taking up his features. When he turned back towards his new home, he was met with his family's flabbergasted faces that did nothing more than make him jokingly jeer.

“What? I didn’t fly too close to the sun,”

* * *

Johnny didn’t think he’d heard Reed yell in his life, really-he couldn’t recall him ever raising his voice unless in battle when calling out directions. There was never any anger behind his words, and Johnny wasn’t naive, he knew Reed had likely been angry and yelled before, but he’d always been cautious to never shout in front of Johnny.

“You jumped off the building Johnny, you jumped off the building with no evidence you could catch yourself,” 

Johnny fell further into the couch, hunkering down into the cushions as Reed hollered. Susan had been unbearably silent yet seemingly ready to burst, pacing behind the couch while Reed did so in front. Ben had left the room the moment Johnny had sat down, busying himself with something as his skin blistered into Keratinocytes. Johnny didn’t know that he was currently occupying himself by barricading the door to the helipad.

Johnny knew he deserved the scolding, his flight leaving him with a new sense of maturity, clarity. He’d heard the news, the crowds, and unbeknownst to him even the man who’d taken and tortured him referred to him as a phoenix.

And because of that, of course he’d looked into it, and found there was no limit to this rebirth. His powers had been his first, and this had been his second. A phoenix in the fire.

Straightening back up Johnny’s voice was more than calm, not entirely defending himself, rather explaining his point of view, “It was just a hunch,” a gut feeling, an instinct more pressing than the true danger he was facing in the act of jumping.

“You don’t throw yourself off a ninety three story building on a hunch!” Reed retorted, yanking hard at his facial hair, head turning at an angle for a second that Johnny knew must have hurt.

“Well I did,” Johnny exhaled easily, having nothing else to say, because his act of freefalling had done exactly what it needed to do. 

“Fire is lighter than air,” Susan finally broke the silence, it more so under her breath than aloud, but audible enough that the two men didn’t miss it.

“Fire is less dense than air,” Reed corrected, his shoulders slumping, tone defeated. Reed hadn’t been very knowledgeable on people in general before he met Sue, but Reed knew Johnny, and even his socially inept self could sense the change in his brother-in-law.

It was a change that struck him to the core but it didn’t fill him with the gnawing sense of trepidation he normally got when change caught up with him. The boy’s cockyness had morphed into competence. There was no longer a strong facade of teenage know-it-all independence, there was the true beginnings of the strong man they always knew Johnny would grow to be. 

The true Human Torch was sitting on the couch before them, worries behind him, lighter than air, lighter than all that's come before him and all things that would cross his path. His burning presence repelling and running from his power, and only allowing some to bask in his light.

Johnny had gone through his rite of passage in a way that’d forever scar Reed. Scarring Susan, and Ben too, but Reed forced himself to exhale, pulling the young man he’d raised into an embrace before rushing off to tell Ben it wasn’t necessary for him to barricade the helipad.

Except when he got there, he didn’t correct his friend nor did he tell him to stop installing the scrapped up locks. His paternal feelings didn’t allow it even when he was almost certain Johnny wouldn’t be throwing himself off the helipad with the intention of anything more than actual flight.

* * *

Everett picked him up from Mrs. Magladales house, having stopped by to explain his absence, do a few crafts, and even help her with a few things around the house. The public had been especially interested in The Fantastic Three’s change to the Fantastic Four and the introduction of The Human Torch before they were forced to fight again as the Fantastic Three while he recovered, and as of yesterday the appearance of said Torch flying throughout the cities skyline with the rising sun.

SHIELD and their new organization SWORD seemed more than interested as well. Almost excited, but Everett explained the interest with a single statement, “They’re opportunist,”

It made sense, for the time being he was the Fantastic Four’s artillery, capable both in close quarters and from a distance and now with the ability of flight, he was even more of a force to be reckoned with.

“You’re not going to let them run me ragged?” Johnny had said it jokingly until he actually realized he wanted an answer, and Everrett was quick to give one, a serious one, looking much like a person who’d previously made a promise that was being affronted. 

“Of course not, I doubt your family would allow that either,” the platinum blond’s phone pinged insistently in his pocket, a quick burst of messages appearing on the little screen of his radio giving Johnny a sense of deja vu from his earlier trip in the car with the man.

“Still being sent memes by royalty?” The pyromaniac chortled before adding, “They better be some high quality stuff,”

Everett actually giggled in response, nodding and pulling the car up to what had become a safe place of there's. The drive in burger joint with the rollerblading waitresses, and burgers he’d sell his soul for.

“Oh believe me they are, I don’t regularly use social media and even I can tell what she’s sending isn’t what you’d call _mainstream_ ,”

“And do you talk to Peter Parker?” Johnny asked, intrigued, the world was and he was no exception. Everett’s smile dimmed then, but he nodded nonetheless. Johnny knew the man in front of him had secrets, and could keep them, but he was more than sure Everett couldn’t quite keep them from him and most definitely not from the other teen blowing up his phone.

“Only every blue moon. I managed to speak with him not long ago.”

“So it’s true, Peter Parker is Spider-Man?”

“Yes, we’re not sure if we’ll be trying to cover it up or not, but I have a feeling you two will be meeting soon enough. But do keep that truth to yourself if we do manage to tether back what Mysterio let loose,” Everett admitted, rolling down his window for the waitress and relaying their orders, already knowing them by heart.

“And what they said about him and Tony, what Mys-”

“No, back when I was a...bastard so to speak. It was easy to see that when something was important to Stark, significant, he went above and beyond. He made sure that the Accords didn’t interfere with his spider. If I’m not mistaken, Peter Parker, although not biologically, was his son. And I think if Peter hadn’t come into Tony’s life, that man would have stayed a bachelor forever and he certainly wouldn’t have wanted to have a child of his own,”

Everett quieted again when their waitress returned with their order, the girl sending Johnny a flirtatious grin before skating off.

“The two know about you, not your name or anything, just that your their age,” Everett explained reassuringly after a bite of his food, “I personally think Peter could benefit from another friend his age, Shuri and him only truly began to talk recently but I think having another friend your age in the same business could be rather beneficial,”

“And Shuri?”

“She wants to be your friend too. I’ll set that up later, but I’m pretty sure Peter said he’d come to you,”

“Spider-Man’s going to come talk to me?”

“Yeah, Spider-Man’s going to talk to you,”

* * *

“Go on with your plan, but I want one thing in return in the end. You will get your vengeance on Mr. Richards, and even the world at your fingertips. But I may offer you an out if you don’t succeed. At a price.”

“What is the price you seek?” Dr. Doom requests, the promised power thrumming through his skin and tingling at the tips of his fingers.

“For if your plan doesn’t work out, as it didn’t seem to for another that came before you. I want not only for you to bring me the boy who bursts into flames, but I also want you to bring me the boy of Spiders, and the princess of Wakanda. And not only that, when you conquer your world and live out the lavish life of fearful adoration you always wanted. On your deathbed call on me so I shall end your world with your legacy, and bask in the grief that the end of your world will follow,” The Griever explained.

“I’ll bring them to you but may I offer an alternative? For I know your power is great. Stretch my time on this earth, and let me make them grieve harder and longer for you shall feast and I may bask in my victory longer. And when my time comes, you may not only bring me the death creeping up my spine, but you may take my place as ruler, so long as you do me the honor of searing both our beings into the last moments of every life taken.” Victor bowed, begging on his knees. Groveling at the ice blue womans feet as the grotesque alien under her petting hand snarled.

An easily accomplished task now that the time stone was gone.

“How long do you wish to live before I reap your soul?”

“As you are a timeless, gratuitous (something she didn't see as an insult), _patient_ being. I ask for my life to have the addition of a millennium, and if I don’t make the time I seek, or if my earth doesn’t due to another threat, I will call upon you to take it all,”

“You have a deal, but it comes with a warning. You’re strongest competitors that aren’t those that I seek will get in your way. The captain glowing in a golden light. The sorcerer with a blood red shadow, and the witch who is bathed in loss. I myself will handle the otherworldly heroes you are unaware of, but those on your earth will need to die before you may rule,”

“They will die,” Doom agrees, knowing exactly how he’d blend them into the dirt and build his empire on their corpses. Mrs. Fantastic and the Thing would be joining them too, and they’d already discussed what’d become of Reed, likely the same thing she’d be doing with the three she asked for. And if she would personally be doing more, or had a bigger reason for asking for the specific three she did, he was too afraid to ask.

Not a simple feat. Not a simple feat at all. But a deal was a deal, and all it could do was benefit them both.

**Author's Note:**

> snap: allisonw1122  
> tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> insta: webtrinsic


End file.
